43 pages • 1 hour read
Thomas KingMedicine River
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Harlen visits Will, bringing with him more gossip, this time about how Eddie Weaselhead threw a knife at his cousin, Big John Yellow Rabbit. Eddie has a non-Blackfoot parent and dresses in traditional attire, although he was raised off the reservation and speaks the language poorly. Big John sees Eddie as someone who is pretending to be Blackfoot when he is not. When Big John told him so, Eddie threw a knife at him. The conflict between them has been exacerbated by the fact that Big John was given the director position at the Friendship Centre, which Eddie had wanted. Big John also appears to be using some of the Friendship Centre’s budget for his own personal use. True to form, Harlen organizes a social evening of gambling and eating and invites both Eddie and Big John, whom he believes to be “good friends and blood kin” (60). They play a traditional gambling game. The game goes on too long and nobody wins, but Big John and Eddie decide to have their own game. Eddie wins and gets Big John’s fancy tie along with $200. He gives Big John his bone choker, which he had bet in the game, as an act of sarcastic pity. Shortly after the evening, Big John comes to work with the choker around his pet poodle’s neck, and Eddie struts around with Big John’s tie ripped up and made into a ribbon shirt. This goes on for a few days, but things soon return to normal, and their relationship remains the same.
Will remembers his mother’s best friend, Erleen, who was older and seemed to have more money. She and Rose would often cut coupons and go grocery shopping together, and Will enjoyed hearing Erleen’s stories about her late husband. Will remembers one occasion when Erleen was arrested for shoplifting, and he had to wait several hours while she and his mother were questioned. Erleen told the police she was planning to pay for the items and got away with it, but Will remains suspicious that she was stealing all along, as he recalls not being brought along on any future grocery trips. Erleen moved to Edmonton a few years later and died from a stroke soon after that.
Chapter 6 Summary
Raymond Little Buffalo is an eccentric man who had made some money working for an oil company in Calgary, until an economic recession depleted his gains and forced him to move back to Medicine River. There, he was elected to the Friendship Centre council and joined the basketball team. He is an aggressive player, but friendly off the court. He also draws questions when he suddenly shows up with a brand-new car and suit; people wonder how the Friendship Centre is affording to pay him so much. When Ray gets an idea to make a calendar of prominent Indigenous figures and sell it to the oil companies, he asks Will to take care of the photography work for which he promises to pay. Will agrees, the calendar seems to sell well, and when Will inquires about his pay, Ray claims to have lost his bill. Will looks at Ray with deep suspicion, wondering what he did with the money.
Will recalls the many detailed stories he invented about his father’s career and life story and the reasons why he was never around. Will’s father is a total stranger to him, and he thinks that he invents these stories to fill that void. On Will’s 26th birthday, his mother sent him a photograph of his father, but Will never felt that the photograph told him much about who his father really was.
Chapter 7 Summary
This chapter moves back in time to when Will’s mother died and he rushed back to Medicine River from Toronto for the funeral. After the funeral, Will’s brother, James, gets Will a ride home with his friend Harlen. This is Will’s first time meeting Harlen, who right away asks Will whether he will move “back home” (74). While Will tries to explain that he prefers life in Toronto, Harlen tells Will about the majestic natural surroundings of Medicine River, particularly Ninastiko, or Chief Mountain, which those who live in the area see as a guiding beacon and a symbol of home. Will tries to connect with when he is in Medicine River, but James seems to harbor resentment toward Will for his leaving, and their interaction is tense and empty. When Will is at the airport to fly home, Harlen appears and hands Will a folder, encouraging him once again to move to Medicine River and open a photography business. He speaks with assurance, as if he already knows that Will is going to come back: “When you decide to come home, Will, you just call. That’s what friends are for” (76). On the plane, Will opens the folder to find information about the town. It also includes the photography advertisements from the phonebook, with Harlen’s notes explaining the flaws of each. He hopes that Will can be the only “Indian photographer” (77) in town. Ironically, when Will returns to Toronto, he finds out the owner of the studio where he works has sold the business, and he cannot find another job. Thus, he decides to return home, “as Harlen said” (77), and when he lands, Harlen is at the airport waiting with a wide grin on his face.
Will stays with Harlen for three weeks, and Harlen takes Will everywhere, introducing him to everyone he knows and advertising Will as a famous photographer. Will secures a loan and opens his new business, which he names “Medicine River Photography” (80). Harlen is Will’s first customer, and Will hangs his photo in the window. After a year, Will’s business is profiting.
At a wedding that Will is photographing, he notices that Harlen is not in attendance, which is extremely odd for Harlen. He asks around and runs into a man named Bud Prettywoman who tells Will a long-winded story about Harlen’s past. Harlen’s wife died in a car accident, and he reverted to his old habits of heavy drinking, though he since stopped. Eventually, Bud reaches the point: Harlen is drinking again. Will goes out in search of Harlen, checking the American, a bar where Blackfoot people typically go, as well as all the other town bars. He finally goes to Harlen’s house and uses a key he knows to be stashed under the porch to get in. He finds Harlen lying asleep in bed, with a vomit pail nearby. Will cleans up what he can and settles in for a difficult night. Harlen awakes later, and then his friend Bertha arrives and tells Will that Harlen has the flu. Harlen thanks Will for his concern and they enjoy some soup together.
Chapter 8 Summary
The basketball team is driving back from Salt Lake City, Utah, where they participate in an annual tournament that they always lose. Harlen asks Will why he’s depressed, but Will denies feeling that way. Will states he just hates losing, but Harlen thinks that Will is upset about a recent argument that Will had with Louise. For most of the drive home, Harlen brings it up repeatedly, and insists on stopping in Montana to visit the Little Bighorn and the Custer Monument national cemeteries. He considers them part of Indigenous heritage despite their associations with other tribes, because they are reminders of Indigenous peoples’ fights to preserve their way of life. The Custer Monument is closed when they arrive, adding to Will’s overall irritation with the trip. Harlen is surprised that the guard won’t allow an exception for a group of Indigenous men. That night, the team stays at a motel, and Will thinks about crashing through the gates at the cemetery as the guard screams for help.
Will recalls meeting a woman named Susan at an art gallery he was photographing in Toronto. Susan worked for the art journal that hired Will. The first time they met, she dismissed him with a polite phrase or two, but when Will dropped off the slides for the article, she invited him to lunch. Subsequently they dated for weeks, with Will becoming more entranced by Susan’s eyes, soft voice, and love of art, and Susan moving some of her clothing to Will’s place. One night, Will called Susan at home and found out that she had a husband.
Chapter 9 Summary
Harlen invites a man named Clyde Whiteman to join the basketball team. Clyde has a history of arrests, some of which were the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, while others were of his own doing. Harlen has faith that Clyde can improve, and both he and Clyde hope that the team will help Clyde do so. Clyde turns out to be an amazing player, scoring dozens of points in some games and carrying the team. When he is arrested for attempting to punch a police officer and sent to jail for 30 days, Will manages to pick up some of the slack, but Harlen seems distraught that Clyde would make such a poor choice. He feels like a sort of father figure to Clyde and often yells at him when he makes mistakes, which Clyde misinterprets as hatred. Harlen asks Will to drive Clyde home after a game one night, and Clyde laments that he is tired of disappointing everyone and making mistakes in his life. Will tells him he’s doing his best, and Harlen comes over afterward to ask how the conversation went. A few days before the finals, Clyde is arrested for stealing a car. The team manages to win the championship without Clyde, but Harlen can’t enjoy the victory. He goes out to the jail to see Clyde, give him a championship jacket, and lecture him. Will visits as well, and Clyde repeats his usual hopes of wanting to change and stop making mistakes. Will watches as Clyde plays a game of basketball “smooth and sure” (106), without a flaw or mistake to be seen.
When Will was a child, his mother would occasionally tell stories of when he was very young or before he and his brother were born. She would use fake names when describing the funny or sweet things that his father would do, and the connection that he and Will seemed to briefly share. In one of Rose’s favorite stories, the family went to see Will’s father in a rodeo show. He did well at first but soon fell in horse manure, and on the way home, Will still wanted to sit on his lap, pretending to drive and holding the wheel.
Chapters 5-9 Analysis
The politics of Life in an Alberta Blackfoot Community are unique to the community. There are assumptions, judgments, and unspoken qualities that some members of the community believe are necessary to be considered Blackfoot. These include having two Blackfoot parents, being raised on the reservation, and knowing the language. Those who do not fit these qualifications are regarded as outcasts by some. While Will never experiences direct harassment or abuse due to his white father and being raised in Calgary, he does bear witness to a conflict between two local men, which is symbolic of the much larger prejudice that exists within the community. The two men are opposites: Eddie Weaselhead was raised outside the reservation, barely speaks the language, and parades around in full traditional Blackfoot clothing, including a ribbon shirt and bone choker. Big John, in contrast, has two Blackfoot parents, speaks the language, and dresses in Western clothing. The two men act as foils: one who is estranged from his heritage and wishes to grow closer to it, and the other who is fully acknowledged in his community and presents in typically Western fashion. Eddie represents the struggle of many Indigenous people to navigate and establish their own identity in a world that tells them that they cannot be Indigenous and they cannot be Canadian. Meanwhile, the Blackfoot people of Medicine River rely on their connection to their peoples’ history to maintain their sense of community. For some, this sense of community extends only to the Blackfeet, but for people like Harlen, it encompasses all Indigenous peoples. He demonstrates this when he insists on seeing the Little Bighorn monument, a testament to the willpower of the Indigenous people to fight for their ways of life.
Other people in the town showcase other problems that often stem from a broken connection to one’s people and past, emphasizing the importance of forming healthy connections in the Intersections of Past and Present. Clyde is a man who embodies perfection on the basketball court but cannot stop himself from making mistakes in his own life. He holds a strong desire to improve, but continually falls back into the same patterns. For people like Clyde, there is not enough support to help break the cycle; instead, they are sent to jail and released without rehabilitation. Both Will and Harlen demonstrate solidarity with Clyde, as they both visit him in jail. Like Clyde, Ray seems to be careless in his life, and constantly spends more money than he has. To live in the town, Will must regularly demonstrate Forbearance and accept that the people around him are far from perfect. When one person makes a mistake, in many ways the whole town pays for it.
Will is ambivalent about whether to call Medicine River his home, and he feels this way long before returning there. His relationship with Harlen slowly changes his mind. He is brought back to Medicine River through his mother’s death, which is also how he meets Harlen, who seems to have some alternative sense that Will is meant to come back to Medicine River. He treats Will as if he has known him for years, asking when he plans to come home, and encouraging him to do so until Will boards his plane back to Toronto. Harlen insists that Will belongs in Medicine River and could be successful there, but Will never really felt as though it was his home, as he only lived there for a short time when he was young. When Will does move back, Harlen is the one to greet him and introduce him to the people and places of Medicine River. He explains the prominent symbolism of Chief Mountain: “That’s how we know where we are. When we can see the mountain, we know we’re home” (75). It takes time for Will to settle in, but before long he cares deeply for Harlen and the rest of the town. The friendship between Will and Harlen is as constant as the river itself despite their differences and struggles, emphasizing the theme of Friendship and Forbearance. Will’s new home requires that he become tolerant of the quirks of others, even when they are grating. His sense of community, by extension, is built on this sense of patience and understanding, even in the midst of conflict.
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